


Neon Lights Adrift At Night

by Eristastic



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Caretaking, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Other, Post-Graduation, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After graduation, the kids are invited to Mettaton's Paris ''''bachelor pad'''' and they take the long route (totally planned, not just because Frisk found cheap tickets).</p>
<p>So it's not really a road trip, but it's enough of one to get them thinking, and to get Chara wondering what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this feels like something I would never write, that's because it is. This is something I'd never write, but did, because I'm drowning in block, so here we are. 
> 
> I've never been on a road trip. I haven't even been to the south of France in years.

It wasn’t a road trip, not exactly. It wasn’t supposed to have been one, either: they should have just flown straight to Paris, but of course there’d been a better deal with a cheaper airline – discount on car hire included – and Frisk had jumped at it like a bargain-thirsty grasshopper. Chara and Asriel had not found out until after the tickets were bought. Two adults, one child, to Montpellier on a flight that required them to be at the airport at 3am.

( _This is why seventeen-year-olds shouldn’t have access to credit cards!_ Chara had raged, not to be mollified for roughly two hours).

And so, after a confusing and awkward introduction to the just-about-serviceable car they’d hired, they set out on a trip that, according to Google Maps, would take about seven hours.

“It could be worse,” Frisk said in their quiet but cheerful voice from the back seat, already lounging. “Seven hours isn’t that long.”

And no, it wasn’t, in the scheme of things, but things like relativity and logic had no place in Chara’s sulk and they just glared back as Asriel tried to navigate his way out of the airport. The built-in GPS was beeping happily at him in a stressful duet with other cars’ honks.

“Do you think we can stop off in Bordeaux?” Frisk wondered quietly to themself, their face pressed up against the window.

“No,” Chara scowled and flung a few choice hand gestures at a driver who didn’t seem to understand that it was generally considered ‘not the thing’ to stay in the wrong lane just long enough to cut back in at the head of the queue.

Ignoring them, Frisk went on. “Only, I was thinking that it’s legal for _all_ of us to drink here, and it’d be so cool to stop off in a wine garden or whatever they’re called-”

“Beer gardens, not wine,” Asriel added helpfully, his voice as strained as his hands against the wheel.

“Well, whatever. I want wine anyway. Wouldn’t it be cool? We could sit on recliners with vines woven in lattices above our heads, staring out onto a beach, sipping wine in silk dressing gowns-”

“You threw up the one and only time you’ve had alcohol,” Chara pointed out snippily.

“Yeah, but that was whisky, and everyone knows-”

They were cut off for the third time as Asriel let rip into a colourful stream of swearing as he cursed the driver who’d just pushed in front of him. Chara and Frisk stayed quiet, waiting for it to finish. When it eventually did, it left only muffled sounds of cars and the placid voice of the GPS to offset his heavy, angry breathing. Slowly, they made it out of the airport and onto the motorway.

Deeming it safe to speak, Frisk said, “That was a good one. ‘Syphilitic son of a-’”

“ _Frisk_ ,” he pleaded. Chara looked to their side to see (with some delight) that he was blushing under all that white fur, the skin around his nose turning bright red.

“I’m just saying, it was good. Where’d you get it?”

Asriel grimaced, keeping his eyes on the road. Chara, who knew exactly where he’d got it from, said, “Is it so impossible he came up with it himself?”

“What, the kid who wouldn’t say ‘fuck’ until he was sixteen? Yes.”

“Fair point.”

They made a sound of agreement and, their deductive prowess having been acknowledged, they dropped the question for a different one. “So even if we don’t go to Bordeaux, can we still get wine?”

“Do you really think Mettaton would entertain us without wine? I’m sure there’ll be _some_ ,” Chara said, resting their chin on a hand, staring out of the window at the picturesque view of some French motorway.

“Oh, good. I did think, but I didn’t want to assume.”

“He probably bathes in it: he can spare some for you to try. You can manipulate him into buying you a silk dressing gown too, if they don’t provide them at the hotel.” That was an unnerving possibility, actually: since they and Asriel had just graduated, Mettaton had insisted they come (‘ _with my darling Frisk, of course!_ ’) to spend a few weeks with him in the five-star hotel he basically lived in. Chara had, not unsurprisingly, never stayed in a five-star hotel before, and they had no idea what to expect beyond vague images of glitter and fountains.

“Do you think he’d buy me one with a French flag pattern?” Frisk asked in a wistful voice.

“I believe he’s usually quite discerning about clothes, so no.”

“What if I pretend to cry?”

Asriel sighs. “I taught you that so you could use it for _good_. Not to enable your…fashion preferences.”

“Awful taste,” Chara translated. Frisk didn’t protest this, oddly, so they looked around to see teary eyes turned on them. Decisively, they looked away again. “I lived through fuck knows how many years of Asriel doing that to me: don’t think you’re getting away with it.”

“Can I at least get a shirt with the flag on it?”

“You may.”

“And a headscarf?” they asked, perking up.

“If you promise not to wear it around me.”

“I promise!” Thus satisfied, they sat back and quietened down, presumably weaving happy thoughts of all the tourist traps they were going to visit and all the over-priced souvenirs they were going to buy. The GPS gave a vacant-sounding instruction, and Chara closed their eyes.

 

They were woken up by an insisting finger poking their shoulder along with Asriel’s not-at-all-inconspicuous hisses of “No, you’re going to wake them!”

“Damage done,” they growled, their mouth feeling like something crawled into it and died. “What is it.”

“Can we put on music?” Frisk asked. “It’s been about an hour, and my earphones are in the trunk.” They had that special tone of voice that meant they had reached the end of their tether of being quiet and good. There wasn’t much for Chara to do but nod grimly, thinking bitter thoughts about aeroplanes and cramped seats and hours upon hours of not being able to sleep.

It took fifteen minutes for Frisk to work out how to plug their phone into the car, even though they were ‘helped’ by Asriel’s distracted advice (punctuated by curses at cars tailgating him), and then the three of them were finally into the welcoming embrace of classic 2000s AMV songs. Chara knew this since they were the one who’d linked Frisk to the original playlist. As a joke. It didn’t seem like an argument they wanted to get into, so they said nothing.

The sun was already falling just short of its peak, which didn’t bode well for their expected time of arrival, but Chara supposed it didn’t really matter. Asriel was very good at driving for long periods of time as long as he wasn’t with his parents and was therefore allowed to shout and swear as much as he needed to. They, provided they were in the front seat, could usually sleep quite well, and as long as Frisk had the back seats to spread out on and plenty of toys to fidget with, they’d be fine as well. It was going to be fine, even with both Frisk and Asriel now singing along, out of tune.

When the song switched from Evanescence to The Scissor Sisters, Chara joined in.

 

“I’m so hungry.”

Chara turned around to look at Frisk, lying on both seats, twirling a couple of sparkly bangles around on their finger and watching them mournfully. They’d been saying it at regular intervals for the past half hour, so Chara deemed it time to give them the good news.

“We’re coming up to a service station now, so just hang on.”

“Are we really?” They practically leapt up, strangling themself a little on the seatbelt.

Asriel took the turnoff, and clarified in an anxious voice, “Well, it’s a big supermarket, anyway, not really a _service station_. But we need gas, and I think the sign said the next services were like ten kilometres on, so…”

He needn’t have worried, since Frisk was now glued to the window, their eyes wide and their voice a low _ooh_ of awe as the car turned at a roundabout, went under a bridge, and came out into a massive car park. “It’s a _Carrefour_ ,” they whispered reverently.

“Yeah, just like the last nine we passed,” Chara said, without much bite, as they got out of the car and stretched. The other two did the same, but with a lot more flexibility and a lot less scowling at the popping and crunching of their joints, since only Chara’s popped and crunched. Then, while Frisk ran off to find a shopping trolley, Chara walked over to Asriel, hands in their pockets.

“Holding up okay?”

He looked at them sadly. “I’m so tired.”

“Same,” they grinned. “At least you got to sleep in the plane.”

“Well yeah,” he admitted, reaching to put an arm around their shoulders, “but I’m still tired. The guy next to me kept snoring.”

Chara nodded. “Flights are awful. Let’s never do them again. Let’s just live here forever.”

“You can’t speak French.”

“I can speak _some_. Just because you speak it better than me doesn’t mean I can’t speak it at _all_. And we can’t all be language geniuses like Frisk.” They both spared a look at the mentioned Frisk, who was having a wonderful time spinning their trolley around in circles. Once they’d realised that learning languages was an option for them, they’d never looked back, and they were now semi-fluent in both Spanish and Latin, of all things, learning Korean, and kept talking about taking up Russian too (‘ _because it_ sounds _cool!_ ’ they’d say, with stars in their eyes).

“Well,” he said, squeezing their arm a little tighter and smiling at them. “Let’s see how these two weeks go. We can always stay longer if Mettaton doesn’t mind paying for the hotel. And he’s loaded anyway, it’ll be fine. I doubt Frisk will get bored anytime soon.” He nodded over at where Frisk was helping an old woman load her shopping into the back of her car. “You’re excited, aren’t you?”

“I am not.”

“You are too, you liar.”

“I’m not! I’m…” _worried_. For all the hundreds of things that could go wrong on a trip like this, so many miles away from Toriel and Asgore who always knew how to fix everything. Thrown into the world now school was over, with no idea what they were going to do with themself. No marketable skills, no special talents – just a host of backlog weighing them down. A gap year was all well and good, but what were they going to do when Asriel went off to college? Get a job? Go on trips? Do anything remotely productive? With their track record, that was just laughable.

A breeze shivered past them and they took a hand out of their jeans pocket to wrap around Asriel’s waist, instinctively moving closer to his warmth. He didn’t say anything.

Frisk led them into the supermarket like the head of a marching band (and what a sorry-looking marching band it was), and smiled at absolutely everyone they passed. Chara shrunk into Asriel, only peeking out to examine fancy new snacks they’d not seen before. Frisk, predictably, had gone straight off to the cheese section and they only returned once they’d picked out what looked like seven different cheeses. Asriel made them go and put half back.

The cheese situation moderated down to a brie, a camembert, and a dull-looking beaufort, Frisk dutifully helped choose other snacks and drinks. Asriel kept getting distracted by the overhead speakers that spoke too fast for Chara to understand, though he didn’t seem to have the same problem. It was all about fidelity cards and vouchers anyway: they didn’t need it.

To their relief, Frisk and Asriel seemed happy to smile and talk to the cashier when they got there, and Chara snuck away to the large windows where the racks of firewood and charcoal blocks were sold, trying to look unapproachable. The plan got derailed a touch when they noticed a dog tied up outside which, naturally, they had to go and pet, and Asriel and Frisk found them there five minutes later. They were dragged off to the car mercilessly.

 

Chara thought they were going to lose their fucking mind, and while it was hardly the first time the thought had snuck in, it was still acutely annoying. They stared very firmly ahead of them, tapping their fingers on the dashboard half because they wanted to seem intimidating and half because they liked the sound.

“Chara, I really need to go,” Frisk whined pitifully, again.

“We just left the supermarket.”

“Twenty minutes ago!”

“And in twenty minutes, you did what, exactly?”

A guilty silence.

Keeping their voice level and calm, they said, “You drank that whole bottle of champagne for kids, didn’t you?”

“…yes.”

By that time, Asriel was trying very hard not to laugh, which was in turn making Chara feel like laughing, which didn’t suit their plans at all. They attempted self-control. “A whole bottle, Frisk.”

“It wasn’t alcoholic.”

“Well no, I didn’t think it was, since it was marketed to children. But still. An entire bottle of liquid. In twenty minutes.”

“It tasted good!” they tried to protest.

“I hope it was worth it, then.”

“ _Chara_!”

Asriel, valiantly keeping the snigger out of his voice, said, “You could have some of those cheesy crackers we bought. They might soak up the liquid.”

“Would that work?”

“No.”

Frisk wailed, so it was a stroke of good luck that the road signs began to advertise a proper service station to give them hope. Filled with determination, among other things, they agreed to wait rather than stop off on the hard shoulder and take a trip into the small wooded area around the motorway.

 

Driving at night was an experience Chara rarely had the chance to savour, but they thought they were enjoying it. The lights flashed by rhythmically, other cars occasionally overtaking or switching lanes, but mostly it was peaceful. Their own music – soft, vaguely erratic jazz – played quietly in the background, accompanied mostly by Frisk drowsily saying ‘same’ out loud every so often. Chara had stopped trying to identify what they were identifying with. The first few times had been such memorable things as a jacket on the side of the road, a fallen tree, and a driver they’d overtaken who had been enthusiastically singing along to music of which they could only hear the heavy beat.

Asriel was tired. They were too, but they hadn’t been driving for six hours. They’d already phoned Mettaton (or Mettaton’s ‘secretary’) and held the phone up so Asriel could give him an idea of when they were arriving (late), so there wasn’t much to do but sleep.

That was what Frisk seemed to be doing: the ‘same’s slowly faded out into steady, gentle breathing. Chara looked around to check they really were asleep, then looked across at Asriel.

“You going to be okay?” they asked quietly. “I think we’ve still got cold coffee somewhere.”

“Tempting,” he smiled weakly. “I’ll be fine. It’s only like an hour more, right? And then there’s the fun of driving through Paris.”

“It’ll look nice.”

“It’ll be a nightmare.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Asriel whispered. “I don’t want to be the only one awake.”

“I won’t.”

The GPS beeped, a small countdown to a roundabout showing up on the screen. Chara looked at it, their eyes unfocussing until the bright lights swum like a neon river in the darkness of the car. They didn’t feel so much like themself like that, which made for a nice change. They even had the courage to open their mouth, taste the words they were about to say, and push them out into the shadows. “I’m scared.”

“Of the trip?”

“That too. Not so much, but that too. No, it’s mostly…where do I go from here? I don’t want to go to college. I don’t know what I want to study. I don’t want that kind of life, but I don’t have any field I want to go into either. I don’t think I can get a job. I’m going to end up being dependent on your parents for the rest of my life, or on you, and I feel like a waste of space. Of breath. Of anything and everything.”

Asriel nodded. “I kind of feel the same. I mean, yeah, I’m going to college, but what comes after? It’s just a placeholder. It’s just me saying ‘this is what humans do, so I’m going to do it too, because I need it to be accepted’. I don’t want to. I don’t really care about college: I want to get a job, go into the workforce, be…be useful, I guess.”

Chara nodded fiercely.

“But I don’t know what I want to do either. So I just chose this.”

They looked at each other, and though Asriel turned back to the road just as quickly, Chara still caught his expression. They were sure theirs mirrored it. Hoping it wouldn’t get in the way, they gently put a hand on his where he held the clutch. Their hand barely seemed to cover his, but it was enough; they slipped their fingers in between his and squeezed. Gloomy lights passed over their hands like fast-moving stripes.

It was a funny feeling, the heady freedom of graduation. They felt desperate to chain themself back down again, not with school perhaps, but with something. To be floating – useless and aimless, choking on the need to do something to prove their worth – was like an ache that never went away.

But it wasn’t something they were alone in. With so many things they _were_ alone for, that was actually a relief.

“If you weren’t driving,” they said, barely speaking at all, “I’d lean my head on your shoulder.”

“I’d put my arm around you.”

“I’d fall asleep.”

He smiled, expression softening as he watched the road. “It’s going to be okay, you know? My parents aren’t the type to need you to make a decision right now.”

“I know.”

“You just need to take your time. I guess I do too, but I’ve already made my hasty choice, so now I’ve got to live with that. It’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.”

Chara ran their finger down their arm, feeling the ridges idly. “We will.”

“I love you.”

They made a small sound, not quite trusting their voice, and squeezed his hand again before sitting back up. It was very quiet when a bleary voice came from behind them, “Same.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed my mind.

The hotel room was – to Chara’s acute distress – not a room at all, but really more of a penthouse. They should have expected that, and had, but there was a significant difference between imagining oneself in the lap of luxury and actually being there.

Frisk, to no one’s surprise, was in raptures.

“It’s _amazing!_ ” they sung, spinning around the main part of the room that acted as a sitting area. It was between three sleeping areas separated by tasteful curtains and screens, and on the opposite side of it was the entrance hall (since no self-respecting penthouse would dare be seen without an entrance hall) and the bathroom. It did not have a hot tub, but that was alright, because the (twentieth-floor) balcony had one instead.

Chara and Asriel gaped, more out of tiredness than actual shock. Mettaton, being his sunny self, seemed to take it all in his stride, and might actually have sniffed in distaste at the shabbiness of it all, but it was difficult to tell, since he was a metal rectangle.

“There are bathroom sets!” came Frisk’s next delighted squeak from the bathroom, echoing just a little. “Soap and shampoo and conditioner and perfume samples and sewing kits and nail files and–”

Chara stopped paying attention, though Mettaton rolled over to the bathroom to join in Frisk’s discoveries. The room was stunning – all golden arches and polished floors and spotless leather or satin – and although the view of Paris through the balcony windows looked like nothing more than dark night sky and lights below, it was still mesmerising. It took Chara almost a minute to realise that Asriel was falling asleep on them.

Pushing the suitcases out of the way, they took his hands and gently led him over to the reclining sofa in front of an obscenely wide wide-screen TV. He lay down, reaching up a hand to pat their face in gratitude (they supposed), and smiled blearily up at them. Their breath caught in their throat. He didn’t notice, because he never did, and he closed his eyes before they’d had a chance to collect themself. For a moment, they simply stood there, held in place by fatigue and the odd loss of boundaries that came with it.

But there were things to do. They couldn’t just leave him there: they pushed a pillow under his head and a footstool under the parts of his legs that protruded over the recliner. With that done and Frisk occupied in excitedly telling Mettaton all about the trip while he made disgusted sounds at the idea of travel that wasn’t first class, they stopped and looked around them.

It was very big. It was very shiny. It was very expensive.

Clutching their arms and digging their nails in, they took a breath and went to get the suitcases. Unpacking, at least, they could do and feel useful about it.

 

Asriel woke up an hour or two later, through no fault of his own, but rather because of the slam of the door as Mettaton made his exit with Frisk in tow. By that time, Chara was reading quietly on one of the double beds. The walls must have been well-insulated: very little was audible apart from muffled cars from outside, and when Asriel mumbled their name, they put their book down almost immediately. It hadn’t been good. There were limits to how many morals you could defile just so your main couple got together, and that author seemed to make a game of breaking every single one.

“Awake?” they asked, getting up from the bed.

He rubbed his eyes. “Nng. Barely. What time is it?”

“Ten-ish, I think. I’m exhausted, which is nice. Good to see the jet lag might not be too difficult.”

He made an indecipherable sound of agreement, sitting up. When they were standing next to him, he made a face. “I feel gross.”

“I should think so. Go take a shower. I’ve already had one: it’s very good. There’s a switch to dim the lights and then the shower explodes into a neon rainbow.”

“Classy.”

“Frisk liked it.”

“I just bet,” he grimaced, not even trying to hide his bitterness, but then, he _had_ just woken up. He was never good at that. “Where are they?”

“Out in the city with Mettaton.”

Nodding, he got up and shuffled over to the shower. Chara went back to reading, and they were mostly undisturbed, save for a mildly surprised cry of “You weren’t kidding!”, from which they deduced he’d found the switch.

The adulterous main character of their book had just finished explaining to his prisoner of war/lover why he couldn’t let him go but also apparently couldn’t resist his ‘exotic charm’ when Asriel emerged, a vision of white fluff and steam and no clothes because he’d been an idiot and gone in without them. Chara put down the book with finality and went to help him fish out a pair of shorts from where they’d put his clothes away. His virtue thus protected, he slumped down on the faux-leather sofa and closed his eyes.

“I’m so tired.”

“Didn’t the shower help?” they asked, fiddling with the buttons to a waistcoat they were trying to slip on casually.

“ _Chara_ ,” he whined, leaning his head back. “You know what hot water does to me.”

They did.

He sniffed sadly, staring at the dazzling lights of the ceiling. “I need to groom. But I want to sleep.”

“A conundrum.”

“Help me?”

They’d planned on it from the moment he’d stepped out of the bathroom, his every hair standing out as if he was a very large chinchilla, but it was nice to hear him ask. It was nice to feel wanted, continually. “I’ll get the combs.”

In one of the books Chara had read once as a child before deciding it wasn’t for them, there had been a girl who’d made a great business out of brushing her hair every night. As Chara recalled, she’d done a hundred strokes exactly (which was probably quite easy when you had soft, straight hair), dressed in some frilly white nightgown, using an ivory-backed brush before going to bed to dream sweet dreams about her wholesome life filled with trains and petticoats. Probably. At any rate, Chara had filed the character away and forgotten about the archetype until one night, they’d walked in on Asriel doing his nightly grooming.

There was a definite similarity, they thought for perhaps the seven hundredth time as he sat on the sheet they’d laid out on the floor and they began to brush him. It was calming, bringing the curved tines through feather-soft fur, letting the slight oil of their skin and the repetitive movements bring it under control. Humming a familiar tune they couldn’t name, he filed his claws absent-mindedly, moving his hands in and out as they moved round him on their knees. It was hell for the joints, but that was the price they paid for proximity.

They must have smiled where he could see it, because they were just working on his legs when he asked, “What are you thinking about?”

There didn’t seem much point in hiding it. “I was thinking how much like a plucky Edwardian heroine you are.”

“I…why.”

“The hair brushing.”

He pouted. “That’s not fair: I’ve got more hair than you, so this doesn’t count.”

“When have your parents ever gone to this much trouble?”

He stared at them as if they’d just asked something idiotic, but still with that look of smug condescension, and it was almost like they were both ten again. “My parents are _adults_. Of course they’re not going to do this! They don’t _care_!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Don’t placate me!”

They grinned, vaguely gratified at having managed to provoke him. Just seeing him like that, glaring down at them, made them very much want to kiss him. Just on the nose, or the forehead, or the furrow between his thick eyebrows (and Chara had no idea whether actual goats had eyebrows or not, but they were very glad he did), or the hand, the foot, the collarbone…Anything that would make him squeak.

But they shouldn’t. So they finished off the brushing, put a hand briefly on his cheek to smile at him and (hopefully) dazzle him into forgiving them, and sat back on their feet. The carpet was unbelievably soft under their skin, but not as soft as him.

“Want me to do the fine comb?” they asked, pulling a mass of white hairs out of the brush and stuffing them in the bin.

He seemed to consider this, his earlier irritation gone. “Would you mind?”

“Not really.” It was purely a formality, since they both wanted Chara to do it. Storing the brush away in the bag Toriel had knitted specially for Asriel’s grooming things, they pulled out the smaller comb and started on the delicate hair around his horns, his ears, the pads of his hands and feet. It was still eerily quiet. His filing finished, Asriel just sat back and enjoyed it as a human might enjoy a manicure, closing his eyes and occasionally making noises that sounded suspiciously like purring. Not exactly like a manicure, perhaps.

Whatever it was for him, it was relaxing for Chara. An anchor in a sea of bright lights and glittering surfaces, reminding them that they weren’t about to drown in the unfamiliarity of it all, since there was still this habit. Habits and schedules: tent poles to keep everything from falling in. They still had this, and always would, even if they didn’t usually do it for him.

“Enjoying it?” they asked quietly, their voice a little croaky.

His eyes still closed, he smiled. “Yeah. It feels _good_ having someone else do it for a change…”

“You look like a cat.”

“I resent that comparison. Less than the last one, but still.”

“Cats are nice,” they said mildly, moving to work on his feet.

“Yeah. You prefer dogs, though.”

A small smile worked its way to their mouth. “True. Do you want me to do anything after this? Curl your fringe for you? Polish your horns?”

“Now you’re just making fun of me.” He was pouting.

“A little, but it’s out of love. I like doing this.”

“I like you doing it. Can I brush your hair, after?”

They paused. “If you don’t mind. There’s not much to brush.”

“I want to.” He said it decisively.

When they’d finished and disposed of most of the hair and dust on the grooming sheet, packed it all away, and gone to change into their nightwear, he seemed more decisive still. He wielded the comb like Chara wielded their knitting needles (sometimes, when they felt threatened), and ushered them into a chair on the balcony.

“You don’t have to,” they said, their back straight as they stared ahead. The hot tub was behind them, and all they could see was the border of the balcony, and black air lit up like every window was a firefly.

“I know.” He brushed his fingers through their hair first, running pads down the fuzz of their undercut and down their neck. That – and the wind of the summer night, cool on their bared skin – made them shiver. Then he began to brush, and they closed their eyes.

They were very tired. They’d told themself as much many times in the past hours, but it made them feel a little better. They were tired. Exhaustion was them. They had a mild headache and all of their usual aches were also aching, and even though they were on the cold side, their scars were just itchy enough to be annoying; they reached a hand down to scratch at their arms and thighs alternately. But it was so relaxing to let him brush their hair. After a while of that repetition, even the aches melted into tingles down their neck.

“You can make noises if you want,” Asriel said.

“I can what?”

“Make noises.”

“Thank you for the enlightening clarification. I don’t purr, if that’s what you mean.”

By his silence, they decided it probably was. They hoped he was blushing, and though the balcony lights were bright enough that they would have been able to see, they didn’t want to turn around to check. Somewhere far below them, an ambulance shrieked softly, growing steadily more distant. When his hands moved to brush their fringe, they rested their head against his chest and made a concerted effort to fall asleep.

He noticed after about a minute. “Chara? Chara, no, you can’t do this. _I_ wanted to sleep. Now I’m going to have to carry you inside! Chara, this isn’t fair! I drove you all the way here and you’re doing this to me? This isn’t fair! I’m…Oh Chara, I’m so tired.”

They nodded sleepily. It took him a few minutes to decide they were a lost cause and thus pick them up and carry them inside. After depositing them on a bed, he padded away to turn off lights and close doors, and then, finally, he came to lie in the same double bed as them. They were glad he had. That way, they could breathe him in and ignore the strange hotel smell (nice though it was), and card fingers through his fur rather than the starched sheets of the strange hotel bed.

They were so tired, but it seemed impossible to sleep. Something heavy was dragging at them, like they were too tired to sleep, irritatingly, no matter how they squeezed their eyes shut. They just kept thinking. About that stupid book and its stupid protagonist who thought he could have everything just because he was a king, about their decidedly more sobering lack of a future, about this – what they held in their hands, sharing with Asriel, waiting for one of them to say it in words they wouldn’t have used as kids. ‘I love you’ was all well and good, but there were too many degrees of love. Chara didn’t know how strongly they felt, or how strongly he felt, or how strongly they wanted him to feel for them.

But it was comfortable, if they ignored that. Even though they couldn’t quite calm down or get their thoughts to stop racing in this strange new place, it was comfortable because he was there.

It was comfortable up until the point a very tipsy Frisk came back into the penthouse at three in the morning, singing Frère Jacques in a Spanish accent before promptly collapsing into bed after turning all the lights on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Edwardian heroine book is The Railway Children. As for the book Chara’s reading in-story, I wish I'd made it up, but it’s from bitter experience.


End file.
